‘Star belonged to our neighbour, Jimmy Cox, the pawnbroker,’ Ruby began. ‘He always was a poor excuse for a man and when his mum died, he got worse, coming home drunk and letting the house and garden go to rack and ruin. The dog was his mum’s – God rest her soul – and once she was gone, he made Star’s life a living hell. He left her outside in all weathers and rarely fed her. She’s barely more than a bag of bones, and Treasure was forever feeding her scraps through a hole in the fence.’

Imelda instinctively dropped her hand to rub Grisha’s furry head. She remembered well the cards that she had read for the pawnbroker but said nothing and waited for Ruby to continue.

‘Treasure begged me to speak to Jimmy Cox about Star, and I tried over and again, but he wouldn’t listen, just told me to mind my own business. Perhaps I should have tried harder. Or sent Randall round to see him.’ Ruby was close to tears.

‘What happened?’ Imelda gently prompted her.

‘Last week, Jimmy Cox was found dead on his kitchen floor. He’d had an asthma attack and the police said it looked as though he’d been searching for his inhaler when he collapsed.’

‘Who found him?’

Ruby took a deep breath. ‘Treasure. He came home from school and found Star wandering in the street. He checked Jimmy Cox’s back gate and it was open, so he went into the garden and saw him lying on the floor through the kitchen window. He wasn’t moving.’

‘Did Treasure go inside the house?’

‘No. He says he came straight back home to tell me, and then I phoned for an ambulance. The police were called because it was a sudden death, but they seemed quite happy that it was just an accident. Jimmy Cox had mislaid his inhaler. Probably dropped it on the way home from the pub, one of them suggested. It seems the local police knew him quite well and didn’t have a very high opinion of him.’

‘With good reason, I suspect,’ Imelda added quietly. ‘But Treasure seems fine. Children are often much more resilient than we give them credit for.’ Imelda assumed that Ruby was worried about the shock her son may have suffered as a result of discovering a corpse.

Ruby shook her head slowly. ‘But that’s just the point. When he came home with Star that day and told me how he’d found Jimmy Cox he seemed almost pleased.’

Imelda could understand why he would have been. Jimmy Cox’s treatment of Star had been brutal and as far as she was concerned, he deserved to be dead. But she could also see why Treasure’s apparently blasé demeanour had made Ruby uncomfortable.